Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
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Item Developing self-efficacy toward writing research methods and classroom practices through awareness of writing experiences for high school students(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Education, Health & Human Development, 2020) Frieling, Nicole Pamela; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Sarah PenningtonSelf-efficacy research of students' participation with the writing process considers the factors of ideation, convention, and self-management, or rather, the research depends on the skills and techniques of the student writer. While there is much research dedicated to exploring variables of experience within these factors, such as gender, age, demographics, etc., there is very little research which considers the factor of experience as a whole dimension of each unique students' writing process. This study investigated the writing self-efficacy beliefs held by junior and senior high school students in relation to their associations with writing conception, and how writing experiences might contribute to how self-efficacy and conception are established. Scores of self-efficacy and ratios of writing conception were gathered using surveys. Then, using an ANOVA hypothesis test for significance, self-efficacy scores were analyzed based on conception of writing. Further, open-ended questions were also administered through the survey gathering responses to understand student writing experiences. In conjunction with these responses, student participants created storyboards of their lifelong writing experiences. These artifacts were coded using Krippendorff (2013) coding techniques. The results show a relationship between how students' self-efficacy scores differ based on their conception of writing. Further, the results of this study imply there is a relationship between writing experiences, conception, and self-efficacy. In particular, this sample revealed themes associated with collaboration in writing. However, the results of this particular sample are not the end goal or purpose of this study. Rather, it is to demonstrate the necessity for considering students' experiences with writing in each unique sample of self-efficacy toward writing research. Educational implications and further research are discussed.Item Porosity: the space between identities(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2021) McKay, Laurel Brooke; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Gesine JanzenPorosity' investigates the abstraction of bodies as a way to free people from the visual constraints and societal markers of 'difference' or 'otherness', as tied to class, gender, sexuality and race, that are used to marginalize individuals in our society. I in no way want to remove people's individual experiences, however, these narrow and rigid categories of socially constructed identities support hierarchies that are based in capitalism and systemic oppression, which I think should ultimately be dismantled. Within my monoprints, I use this abstraction of human form to allow for endless possibilities of shifting identity and individual freedom of expression that is not defined by the labels constructed by others. This abstraction of human form also, allows the body to become a sight of resistance and defiance to controls or 'disciplines' placed upon one's existence through bio-political or state structures. I argue that these works of art will allow contemplation on the structures, expectations and invisible manipulations that are tied to how we form and embody our identities in society, while still imparting feeling and emotion as tethered to a shared human existence. I also, hope that they will represent the future possibilities of our fluid identities and a utopian universal that is a shared human experience.Item Exploring the conceptual framework and knowledge base of nature-based experiential education(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Education, Health & Human Development, 2020) Meyer, Joshua Joseph; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Robert CarsonThis study examined the current status of Nature Based Experiential Education (NBEE) with respect to its underlying knowledge base and conceptual framework. Compared to other professions, including K-12 education, these formalized attributes have appeared to be fairly minimal. Anecdotally, NBEE draws upon an eclectic array of sources for inspiration and knowledge, while practitioners rely extensively on their own acquired base of personal experience for guidance. If this is true, then there is a certain element of rugged individualism to be admired. The tradeoff, though, would be a commensurate inability to form a cohesive discourse community, to identify and codify best practice, to establish a coherent research agenda to advance the state of the art, and to support either professional development or the establishment of standards in any kind of systematic and meaningful manner. Assuming that these are desirable goals, the initial challenge was to determine what sources of knowledge are most prominent among its practitioners. This study addressed that problem by using a qualitative mixed methods approach. The researcher employed three separate but complementary methods - by critically reviewing NBEE-related literature, by interviewing individuals with expertise in NBEE, and by surveying NBEE practitioners. The results of this study tend to support the anecdotal view that practitioner knowledge is eclectic, diverse, and largely dependent upon the experiences of individual practitioners, a kind of folk craft which is nevertheless shared among members of the field. It also revealed a small but robust inventory of inspirational and informative publications, some widely known. The project itself was met with interest, as practitioners and experts generally agreed that the profession would benefit from a more systematic and contemporary foundation of canonical knowledge and guiding principles. The study concludes by making several recommendations on how these goals can be served.Item In pursuit of value(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2020) Gathje, Samuel Gehring; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Jim ZimpelWhat follows is an exploration of the bounds of Material Intelligence in contemporary forms of making. While the physical work is autobiographical, and this research is broken up by anecdotal vignettes of my lived experience, the questions presented here are urgent and present. What is craft and where can it be most useful today? What objects hold stories, and how can we become more connected to these objects? In a world filled with the mass produced, I aim in this writing to showcase a different way of approaching material and making. A regard for old ways of seeing, and for a mindfulness when it comes to objects, stories, and spaces. This writing is my journey in pursuit of value. Through my own life, through various mentors, teachers, and lessons, I have learned to look to an object's origin to understand its value. Folk art (art of the people), the handmade, and traditional craft all ground us to place, time, experience or culture. I am not arguing that things must be done one way because it is tradition. Instead, I look at what these traditions provide beyond the object, which is often a communal experience of growth, appreciation, and learning. Craft can connect people across distance and time. To borrow a phrase from Glenn Adamson, I hope through this research to uncover a world of 'Fewer, Better Things'.Item Right here / over there(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2018) Rudolph, Kelsie; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Josh DeWeeseI am curious to find the places where all of humanity fundamentally overlaps, whether that is through feelings or objects or both. Through an elongated process of sensory observation, we can retain this knowledge for the long-term. Here there is more time and room to search for commonalities across cultural and social systems. Finding commonalities between myself and the people, places and objects I interact with is grounding. These experiences provide me with the emotionally loaded act of feeling. The objects within the exhibition are an abstract visualization of an inner presence experienced in my own search for commonalities between various cultural systems, human interaction, and material complexities.Item An eye scanning approach of exploring the experience level at which novice drivers exhibit hazard perception skill as good as their experienced counterparts(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Engineering, 2015) Imtiaz, Ahmed Salman; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Laura Stanley; Nicholas Ward (co-chair)Hazard perception is a key skill needed to drive a vehicle safely. Literature has shown that this skill improves with experience. Little is known regarding the time window in which novice young drivers start exhibiting essential hazard perception skills as efficiently as their experienced counterparts do. This research was an attempt to address this unknown through the use of a semi-naturalistic driving study employing eye tracking technologies and by examining the roadway eye scanning pattern of young and highly experienced drivers with respect to eight indicators: percentage of gaze duration, mean gaze duration, percentage of time taken to make the first gaze at the study region of interest, gaze rate, gaze heading, gaze pitch, head heading and head pitch. A total of 90 participants completed the study. Participants were split into six groups (15 each) on the basis of their driving experience, ranging from novice young drivers with less than 1 year of driving experience, to highly experienced drivers with more than 10 years of experience and asked to drive through two predetermined potentially hazardous scenarios. An observation time window, beginning at the first moment the potential hazard came into view through the moment it had passed, was extracted from the recorded eye-movement videos. Based on the time window, necessary data were collected and analyzed. The results of the study indicated that novice drives do not differ significantly with other young drives, but their visual search strategy remains inflexible even after two years of experience. However, with growing experience, young drivers learn to look farther ahead and scan more widely along their horizontal field of view. The study thus adopted Equivalence Testing procedure to quantify the transition time window from novice to experienced drivers. Each of the novice drivers' groups was compared against the highly experienced drivers. Based on the overall results and careful observation of descriptive statistics, the study concluded that after five years of driving experience young drivers' visual search pattern can be considered comparable to their experienced counterparts.Item Exploring the moderating roles of expectation-bias belief and the ambiguity of stimulus effects on expectation effects(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2015) Carstens Namie, Emily Marie; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Ian M. HandleyExpectations about an upcoming experience often bias the actual or perceived experience later, a phenomenon known as the expectation effect (or bias). However, this phenomenon does not happen all of the time. Previous research shows that the level of belief one has that their expectations bias their experience moderates the influence of expectation effects on experience. However, research findings supporting this moderation conflict. Early research found that people higher in the belief that expectations bias their experience tend to correct against expectations and experience less expectation effects than people who are lower in such beliefs. Newer research found the complete opposite; people higher in belief that their expectations bias them experienced more expectation effects than people lower in expectation-bias belief. To explain these opposing patterns of results, the current thesis explored the possibility that the ambiguity of stimulus effects moderates the effect of expectation and expectation-bias belief on experience evaluations. Thus, the present thesis tested the hypothesis that people higher in expectation-bias belief would experience less expectation effects when encountering an ambiguous stimuli and more expectation effects when encountering a less ambiguous (concrete) stimuli, relative to people lower in this belief. In a reported experiment, participants were randomly assigned to either a control condition that received no expectation about the affective influence of an upcoming picture set, or a negative-expectation condition that received an expectation of negative affect regarding an upcoming picture set. Next, participants viewed the pictures and then completed measures of affect and expectation-bias belief. Statistical analyses revealed a significant interaction between expectations and expectation-bias belief in a pattern that replicated previous research by Carstens Namie and Handley (2005). However, the results did not support the overall hypothesis that stimulus ambiguity would moderate the interaction between expectations and expectation-bias belief. Explanations of the results, alternative explanations of the previous research, and possibilities for future research are discussed.Item Towards the poetics of the immediate experince(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2010) Pope, Jaric Ross; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Zuzanna KarczewskaThe title of this thesis is 'Towards the Poetics of the Immediate Experience' because that should be the quest in attempting to embrace a process-relational worldview. In an attempting to create things we should embrace poetry because it begins to tap into our basic transcendental and mysterious way of experiencing the world. Our immediate and poetic experiences of the world are not only the beginnings of knowledge and reason, but by embracing poetry, we are also embracing a metaphysical and spiritual quality to the work. This pure way, which allows us to both create, experience, and know the world poetically is crucial to understanding a reality that is determined in each moment of 'becoming' and 'perishing' by what is in essence 'feelings'. By 'feeling' nature in its constant and flowing state of 'becoming' and 'perishing' we can begin to understand the 'true' nature of reality. The worldview that supports the universe as constantly in a state of 'becoming' and 'perishing', and interconnected is from process-relational thought. Acknowledging everything as determined by 'feelings', or what we as humans perceive as emotions, which are the true components of our poetic knowledge and found in our basic intuition, leads us to desire an architecture that is truly poetic and spiritual by evoking emotions from the dynamic changes found in nature.Item A framework for circumstance : changing perceptions in the built environment(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2010) Leppert, Jordan Lee; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Zuzanna Karczewska; Barry Newton (co-chair)In our ever-changing world, the role of architecture and designer is constantly adapting to a new criteria. The principals of design have changed in many ways throughout history, but the constant has always been that designed space is intended for the bodies that will occupy it. I believe that the understanding of how architecture can affect our state of mind through perception, social understanding and sensory awareness gives us, as designers, the ability to create spaces that surpass an architecture of the time, and create a space that people will identify with and give meaning to.