Graduate Theses
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An Evaluation of the Validity of English Placement Tests at Imam Abdurrahman Bin Faisal University: A Critical AnalysisThis study examines the validity and reliability of English placement exams at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University and their ability to forecast academic success in English foundation courses. Using a quantitative correlational approach, the research analyzed data from 300 students to assess the relationship between placement test scores and subsequent course grades. Findings indicate that test scores moderately predict course performance, explaining about 38.4% and 36.2% of the variance in grades for two core courses. However, significant variability in test effectiveness across different academic disciplines suggests that the exams may not consistently capture diverse academic needs and language proficiencies. The study recommends targeted refinements in the exam structure and scoring to enhance fairness and accuracy in student placements, addressing specific disparities found across disciplines. These adjustments are crucial for better aligning placement procedures with the educational demands and language competencies at the university.
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Confronting The Over-sexualization of Afro-Latina Women in The Bluest Eye and The Poet XAfro-Latina women experience over-sexualization within contemporary society in ways that their white, female counterparts do not experience. Since the Reconstruction era, black women have been stereotyped as being promiscuous and oversexed. These sexualized stereotypes have carried weight within society for generations and have begun to encroach on other minority races, such as Latina women. Within their novels, The Bluest Eye and The Poet X, Toni Morrison and Elizabeth Acevedo do not shy away from discussing sex, sexualized stereotypes, and how sex impacts young women of color. Instead, they have confronted over-sexualization in their coming-of-age novels about Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl living in Loraine, Ohio during the 1940s, and Xiomara Batista, a young Dominican teenager living in Harlem, New York during the 2000s. Both authors utilize the complicated world of a teenage girl in a society that is accepting of negative sexualized stereotypes and challenge the over-sexualization through their main characters. This thesis analyzes how both authors confront the over-sexualization of Afro-Latina women to give a voice to young women who may be suffering in silence, and who are struggling to navigate a world that tells them they are only valued for what their body can give to a man.
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Death Unto BloomThis is a narrative screenplay that focuses on a fictional dark fantasy world populated by both humans, and the monstrous ice beings that hunt and threaten their survival. It is a narrative that jumps between characters and scenes, not focusing solely on one main character in particular, in order to tell an overarching story. Other genres present in this screenplay's influences are gothic horror, post-apocalyptic, and religious horror.
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Browsing in Disequilibrium: How Media Behaviors are Influenced by Excess and DeficitThe widespread use of smartphones has made it easier to browse the internet and consume various forms of media, including videos and advertisements. This study aimed to investigate the effects of restricting video access while increasing exposure to advertisements. Specifically, we examined whether participants would watch fewer videos when exposed to more advertisements and whether they would tolerate more ads to gain additional video-watching time. We recruited four students from Salem State University to participate in an experiment designed to manipulate their video and advertisement viewing behavior. Baseline levels of advertisement and video viewing behaviors were measured to create two conditions of disequilibrium: Deficit and Excess. Deficit conditions restricted access to videos while Excess conditions bombarded participants with more advertisements than they viewed during baseline. The results demonstrated that disequilibrium could alter participants' media consumption habits by increasing or decreasing time spent watching advertisements and videos. The current study also examined the nature of “browsing” during disequilibrium. Noncontingent browsing was available to determine whether or not participants would engage in this alternative behavior during disequilibrium conditions. Lastly, the current study highlights the ethical implications of disequilibrium, as companies could potentially exploit it for profit.
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Practical Application of Behavior Analysis with Wild Animals in a Sanctuary SettingWhile applied behavior analysis (ABA) is associated with human services, there is a historical basis for applying behavior analytic principles and procedures to the behaviors of domestic and wild animals. Recent research indicates that there are already procedural similarities between the work of applied behavior analysts and animal behavior professionals. A pronounced difference, however, is the absence of behavioral data collected in zoological settings. Caretakers report that they understand the importance of data collection but cite a lack of time and financial resources as barriers. This study explored alternative data collection methods at an educational wolf sanctuary using visitor collected data. Visitors were asked to collect data on either one or two animal behaviors during a 50-minute presentation. Interobserver agreement was calculated to determine whether visitors could collect data in agreement with an independent observer. Results indicated that visitor collected data was within the acceptable range of agreement. Additionally, Q methodology was used to measure visitor beliefs about captive wildlife before and after attending an educational presentation with captive gray wolves present. Results indicated that while visitor beliefs varied from pre- to post-sort, these changes were not statistically significant.
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Garden Rememory In My Garden (Book) By Jamaica KincaidMy Garden (Book) is a collection of essays by Jamica Kincaid. In My Garden (Book) rememory is part of the storytelling and the overall narrative structure. Rememory appears as a recursive happening that allows Kincaid space to return to the historical record to offer recovery. Rememory is present in Kincaid's connection to Antiguan botany and a past that flourishes in the modern present; it exists as a bridge upon which much of the western African diaspora flows. Rememory is also present in the narrative structure of My Garden (Book). Kincaid shakes up the expectations of a narrative form; she breaks sentence structure with thought interruptions, jumps through time and place, inserts lists, and letters, and disrupts categorization and order, such as chapter titles. Rememory becomes an active agent in the narrative storytelling of the garden, excavates otherwise forgotten narratives, and demands a change in thinking, form, and the historical record.
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Balk: A Geographic Analysis of the Impact of a New Professional Sports Stadium on Residential Real Estate Values in MinneapolisThe City of Minneapolis, Minnesota and Hennepin County, Minnesota are among the many government entities that have committed taxpayer funds to finance a professional sports stadium. Both the city and county approved the financing of Target Field in 2007. The new stadium is now the home of the Minnesota Twins, a Major League Baseball franchise. Previous empirical studies have offered differing opinions on whether a new professional sports stadium has an effect on residential real estate values in the surrounding area. This thesis uses a geographically weighted regression (GWR) model to analyze the effect that Target Field had on residential real estate values in the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Using GWR analysis of a hedonic real estate price model, this thesis concludes that being close to Target Field had a significantly positive effect on residential real estate values in Minneapolis in 2016. However, when applying the same model to real estate sales data from a year prior to the approval of Target Field, properties in the vicinity of the location of the ballpark may have been more valuable before the ballpark was built then they were in the years that followed its opening.
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Using Remote Sensing and GIS to Identify Magmatic Strain Accommodation: The Case Study of Mt Marsabit, KenyaPrevious research has demonstrated that the morphology and linear arrays of extrusive volcanic features indicate the presence and orientations of the magmatic constructs that feed them. In extensional tectonic environments, like the East African Rift (EAR), trends of these subsurface dikes can be controlled by inherited lithospheric structures or by the direction of applied stress. Mapping extrusive volcanic features with remote sensing allows for detailed geo-spatial analysis that can reveal valuable data regarding the state of stress in the region or the presence of pre-existing fractures and other lithospheric structures. Mt Marsabit, Kenya (2.32°N, 37.97°E) is a basaltic shield volcano located on the eastern edge of the Turkana Depression in Northern Kenya. The Turkana Depression is a topographical low area of extensional deformation linking the Main Ethiopian Rift (MER) and the Kenya Rift, characterized by a very thin rifted lithosphere (50-60 km; Fishwick, 2010; Kounoudis et al., 2021). While there is typically a predominant north-south orientation of structural and volcanic features in the EAR, some features in east Turkana (e.g. the Dilo-Durkana, Mega, and Hurri Hills volcanic fields) demonstrate superficial NE-SW trends, oblique to the main rift trend. The monogenetic volcanic field situated on Mt Marsabit is no exception and hosts hundreds of tuff cones and maar craters exhibiting an apparent NE-SW trend. The cause of these trends is so far unknown. Here we present data from the mapping and analysis of extrusive volcanic features on Mt Marsabit in an effort to improve our understanding of the tectonic and structural controls on crustal magma transport in this off-axis region of rifting. Analysis of the morphology of these features is performed in ArcGIS Pro while alignments of these features are analyzed in MATLAB. Previously published geological maps are also examined. This volcanic field exhibits a strong northeast-southwest trend in both morphology and linear arrays. Similar trends are observed in other volcanic fields in the eastern extent of the Turkana Depression. The obliquely oriented dikes in these fields may be a result of a combination of controls: en-echelon deformation zones associated with a component of strike-slip deformation; and a rotation of the local stress field.
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Smoke Follows Beauty“Smoke Follows Beauty” is a poetry collection reflecting childhood experiences in the US South with a positionality concretely in the present. With a concise style, the collection considers racial and class divisions by engaging with family conflict and personal memory.
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From Inexperienced To Passion-Driven: Navigating The Working WorldThis thesis follows the adolescent life of Sofia Perez, who acquires a job for the first time at 15 years old. She documents her first experience within the working world in this piece, and also discusses relationships she has made along the way. Over the course of seven years, she blossoms from a shy introvert, to an outgoing and positive spirit. She dives into the good and bad of the workplace, as well as how her strong work ethic has made her the person she is today. From hyperventilating on the first day, to leading a team with ease, Sofia is at the beginning of her career, and ready to find her place in the working world. Her journey started at a retirement community called Bayview, and the six years she spent there were transformative. She hopes for every young teen getting a job for the first time to experience a job that they love, even if it may challenge them or not be in their desired field.
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Scar Of NoxAfter witnessing her Papa's soul ripped from his body by the Unhallowed worshippers of the underGod, Nox has undergone the rigorous training of the Divine Shadows, an elite and secret force run by the Church of Adonex, god of Afterlifes. Fueled by the desire to free him, she prepares for the Rite of Death, the ritual that will give her incredible power. Before she can do that, she must overcome two obstacles--balancing her mistrust and fear of Adonex, the god who scarred her face the night Papa was taken, and learning to get along with her Tomas, her newest and most stubborn scholar-in-training yet. Follow Nox into the darkness as she hunts the Unhallowed, their Desecrated victims, and the truth behind the events that changed her life forever. This thesis is an exercise in writing for young adult audiences and exploring the use of fantasy as a way of discussing deeper topics. Nox herself is an exploration into the mind of a young woman facing trauma and pursuing closure that forces her to constantly choose between giving respite to the dead or saving the living, representing the often-difficult battle of attempting to overcome the past and plan for the future at the same time, a struggle I believe many readers can relate to.
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A Key Without A LockThe first five chapters from the book A Key Without A Lock.
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Emotional FlashbacksA collection of non-fiction poetry and prose that focuses on enduring and overcoming emotional trauma.
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Journeying Through The In-Between: An Exploration Of Liminality In José Saramago’sblindness, All The Names, And The CaveThis thesis focuses on the concept of liminality and the presence of liminal states in José Saramago’s trilogy of novels, Blindness, All the Names, and The Cave. Defined by qualities of disorientation and ambiguity, liminality speaks to being in a state of “in-between,” which, I argue, is applicable to the central characters in each of these texts. Specifically, I examine how Saramago’s characters experience these liminal states, as well the qualities of the liminal states themselves, which share many - though not all - of the same characteristics as labyrinths and caves. To that end, I trace the liminal journeys of the central characters in each novel, the actions required to successfully complete their journeys, and how the culmination of these journeys manifest as an achievement of change engendered by realization, epiphany, and clarity of consciousness. This thesis is divided into three chapters, bookended by introduction and conclusion. In the first chapter, I detail the history of liminality and define the “liminal state” and “liminal subject.” I also discuss how Saramago’s characters can be considered liminal subjects, and the events that precipitate the characters’ entrances into their respective liminal states. The second chapter features the analysis of the beginning stages of the characters’ liminal journeys - the “descents into darkness and the “confrontations with death” - and introduces the concept of “concentric liminality,” as well as the parallels between liminality and symbolic existence. The third chapter explores the final stage of the liminal journey, the “ascension to light,” and the processes by which the characters can achieve their transformations and exit their liminal states.
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Exploratory Theatrics: Muriel Spark's Treatment Of A Woman's Absurd In The Driver's Seat, Memento Mori, And "The Portobello Road"Muriel Spark is sharp in her wit and delivery. She has been known to ‘hold her own’ among male writers of the contemporaneous period -- no small feat. for a woman who came of age in the 1930s. She writes dark -- veering towards sinister -- novels, novellas, and short stories, but what is striking about each of them is her uncanny ability to portray the absurd, a field rarely penetrated by women at all. In the chosen texts, Spark creates at once a sense of agency for the women characters, and an overarching lack of control over the universe in which they exist. Using select feminist theory alongside critical analyses of the absurd, this thesis aims to illuminate the ways Spark’s unique storytelling creates space for women in male-dominated terrain. This includes both the arena in which she chose to write, and in the circumstances she sets up for her characters.
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Mosaics Of Wholeness: Healing Through Queer Indigenous Self-Telling In Billy-Ray Belcourt’s A History Of My Brief Body And Deborah A. Miranda’s Bad IndiansThis thesis examines texts by two queer Indigenous writers, Billy-Ray Belcourt (Driftpile Cree) and Deborah A. Miranda (Ohlone/Costanoan Esselen), to consider how writing about the self—what the Western literary canon commonly terms “memoir” or “autobiography”—is a form of healing in the afterlife of settler-colonialism. Through close readings of Belcourt’s essay collection A History of My Brief Body and Miranda’s Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir, this thesis explores how Belcourt and Miranda both invent and reclaim the Indigenous self through the construction of metaphorical mosaics which, in their assembled wholeness, reflect a kind of “living through” of colonialism. Within this framework, this thesis goes on to argue that the stories of the self crafted by Belcourt and Miranda effectively reconstruct the queer Indigenous embodied self, writing against the colonial imagination with assertions of non-heteronormative sexual desire.
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Studying Land Cover Change In The Goviefe Todzi Sacred Forest, Volta Region GhanaSacred natural sites can be defined as any place in nature possessing a unique spiritual significance to peoples and communities. Throughout the world, sacred natural sites support ecological biodiversity, provide habitat stepping stones, and play a crucial role in the continuation of traditional spiritual practices. These variables in combination create a unique biocultural landscape that warrants conservation and conversely, sacred sites offer a mode of conservation. This research examines land cover change within the Goviefe Todzi sacred forest, located in Ghana’s Volta region, using satellite imagery. We utilized techniques in digital image processing to generate land cover classification maps of the study area for 2012 and 2015. Land cover classifications of high resolution QuickBird-2 and WorldView-2 imagery informed the hypothesis that closed forest cover within the sacred site decreased at a lesser rate than neighboring non-sacred closed forest cover. The Global Forest Change dataset from the University of Maryland framed our understanding of how forest cover changes within the study area and how it fits into the global context of forest cover change. Results demonstrated that the Goviefe Todzi sacred forest exhibited less closed forest loss when compared to non-sacred forest and closed forest was most often converted to open forest in the event of a land cover change. We recognized that other factors such as accessibility to nearby settlements, pre-existing agricultural fields, the time span of the study, as well as the topography of the sacred forest may also contribute to its lack of closed forest loss.
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Selecting President Wilson's Army: The Draft And Immigration In Six Massachusetts CommunitiesIn 2008, as I prepared for a travel-study trip led by Salem State University Professors Christopher E. Mauriello and Stephen Matchak to parts of France and Belgium where the Western Front of World War I had been, I found a list of the men from my hometown, Beverly, Massachusetts, who had died in military service during that war. I was struck by two things. First, the names on the list included many names that were on street corners, bridges, parks, and athletic fields that I had used and passed by nearly every day of my life, never knowing why those names were affixed. Second, judging by the surnames, the men represented a wide array of ethnic backgrounds. I knew that Beverly at the time of World War I had a diverse economic and ethnic composition. It was home to both a world-leading factory and to the residences of some of the wealthiest families in the United States. Old Yankee money shared the City with the immigrants and children of immigrants who mainly worked tended the great estates or in a gigantic factory. Those immigrants and children of immigrants were participants and descendants of the participants in the massive waves of immigration that the United States had received in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. For men of my generation, the heavy hand of the Vietnam War draft had not fallen equally on all, though I was among the lucky ones with a draft lottery number that guaranteed I would never be called. Like some of America’s earlier wars, Vietnam had seemed like a rich man’s war, but a poor man’s fight. I wondered how the diverse group of Beverly men had come to be in the World War I army; had they served willingly, by a draft, or both. That curiosity set me on the course that produced this thesis, which is an attempt to answer two questions: 1) Why did the United States adopt a draft, despite long-standing tradition of using mainly volunteer war-time forces and adverse experience with the draft? and 2) Did anti-immigrant feeling very strong at the time affect who was sent to war?