VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Exploring Perspective-taking in Peer Assessment

For students to learn how to evaluate the quality of their own work, they need to be able to make sense of different sources of feedback. Peer assessment provides a useful opportunity for students to develop these feedback strategies through learning from the production and reception of peer feedback. One powerful way that students learn through peer assessment is to gain an appreciation of different peer perspectives. This experimental study uses multiple methods to investigate how perspective-taking affects peer assessment judgement and peer scoring. As past research suggests that similar experiences influence the ease of perspective-taking, similar past answering experiences of peer assessors are operationalized to examine perspective-taking in this study. Participants were randomly assigned to two experimental groups; each group answered a different question. Participants then used a rubric to rate four peer answers, two from the question they had answered, and two from the other group’s question. While peer scoring, a think-aloud interview and a reflection interview was conducted. Quantitative findings showed that there were no statistically significant differences in peer assessment scores between experimental groups. However, there were some descriptive differences between experimental groups on peer scoring patterns. Groups with similar past answering experience showed more central tendency in their peer scoring. Qualitative findings showed that perspective-taking during peer assessment was happening in several ways. Peer assessors were considering peer perspectives (other information), as well as their own perspectives (self-information). The reflection interviews revealed that similar past experience enhanced an appreciation for different perspectives. The quantitative and qualitative results were integrated in two ways. The integration of think-aloud interviews with peer assessment scores suggests that peer scoring patterns, whether lenient or severe, showed similar forms of perspective-taking, and that perspective-taking could be used to frame both positive appraisals and negative appraisals of peer assessment judgements. The integration of the reflection interviews with the correspondence analyses showed that the central tendency in peer scoring was influenced by both an appreciation of newer perspectives and a stricter appraisal of peer work after self-comparisons were made. The theoretical contributions and pedagogical considerations for peer assessment design are discussed.

Keywords: Peer Assessment
Peer Feedback
Perspective-taking
Advisor: Childs, Ruth RAC
Imperial Debt and the Global Economic Imagination in British and Anglophone Indian Romantic Literature, 1780–1835

Introducing The New Imperial Histories Reader (2010), Stephen Howe locates one of the “great interpretive schisms” defining current scholarship on India’s colonial history between “histories of capitalism” and “histories of colonialism.” Amidst recent global financial crises, that chasm continues to impede our attempts to grapple with the legacies of colonialism by way of several fields, from new imperial and economic histories to critical finance studies. Seeking to bridge that gap, my dissertation turns to literary studies and, in particular, late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century literature, to examine stories told about money, debt, and their increasingly global circulation in an age of economic empire. In so doing, I reveal how authors between imperial Britain and colonial India began to imagine the movements and relationships of a nascent global economy, where debt features centrally as an agent of cultural and commercial exchange and as an aspect of imperial power. Drawing on approaches from new imperial history, new economic history, and critical finance studies, I first read these visions of global indebtedness in eighteenth-century “object narratives” before moving on to sentimental fictions of empire, including the anonymously published The Disinterested Nabob (1787) and Phebe Gibbes’ Hartly House, Calcutta (1789). Next, I turn to Romantic poetry, reading works by Robert Southey and Lord Byron along with Henry Derozio’s Don Juanics (1825–26) and Sir Charles D’Oyly’s Tom Raw, the Griffin (1828). These works distinguish themselves from standard accounts of debt as a personal, social, or national phenomenon by featuring debt and its circulation as part of the narrative of imperial expansion. Together, these works offer contemporary visions of indebtedness as a condition of the modern, global experience under capitalism. By studying texts that conceive of debt globally, my dissertation makes explicit the historical and literary connections that join histories of capitalism and colonialism to our present indebted state; the globalization of debt to the projection of imperial power; and the British imperial imagination to early conceptions of an emerging global economy in Romantic literature of and about early British India.

Keywords: Byron
Credit
Debt
Don Juan
Imperialism
Romanticism
Advisor: White, Daniel E.
Reading Creativity and Meritocracy in Korea’s Education Policy Debate Through Bourdieu’s Field, Habitus, and Interest

In this dissertation, I examine the explosion of the notion of “creativity” in Korean education policy reform discourse of the last three decades, providing a close reading of interview narratives from public-school teachers who were navigating the changes these reforms ushered in. Between November 2017 to May 2018, I conducted in-depth interviews with 20 public school teachers in Korea, focusing on how they understood “creativity” and what they did to adapt to the current context where the education reform is administered by the local and central government. Using a combination of Foucault’s understanding of governmentality to describe the policy discourse, and Bourdieu’s concepts of game, habitus, and interest to interpret my interviews, I show how teachers situated in different locations in the “educational field” struggle to implement evolving policies as they simultaneously interpret the major shifts in Korean society that serve as the backdrop for their classroom work.These policy reforms should be understood in light of the creativity discourse that is circulating globally, rather than a problem that is specific to Korea or an agenda of a particular political group. Comparing the public discourse with the interview narratives of the teachers, I analyze the critiques of the reformed policy using Bourdieu’s notion that the social field is characterized by shifting relationships among the valuation of the forms of capital associated with different “fields,” here the cultural field and the economic field. In comparing the discourses and practices of two competing sets of “rules” of struggle for rewards within the education field, I argue that the game of exams rewarded academic achievement mediated by features of students’ habitus, but that the game of competencies rewards students who come from a specific habitus more instantly in each moment of performance than in the game of exams. Engaging with Bourdieu’s notion of disinterested interest, I argue that the social movement to bring change in the field of education plays the role of an agent who possesses the habitus to recognize the value of the field, and thus, is especially invested in the game, and ends up unwittingly reproducing its structure.

Keywords: Bourdieu
creativity discourse
education policy
habitus
interest
Korean education
Advisor: Song, Jesook
Large-Scale Seismic Soil-Structure Interaction Simulation of Civil Infrastructures

Developing detailed finite element models considering site terrain, accurate soil profile, structural details, and soil-structure interaction (SSI) is crucial for designing earthquake-resilient civil infrastructures. However, practical projects often overlook these factors due to their complexity and high computational demand. Therefore, four frameworks were created to address these challenges, thus allowing for the creation of large-scale infrastructure models with high fidelity.The soil-foundation-bridge interaction framework provides a practical tool for modelling complex soil-bridge systems. It incorporates borehole log data, simulates various foundation types, represents accurate embankment and abutment geometries, and reduces computational resources. The framework accurately modelled the Meloland Road Overpass bridge, captured inelastic soil-bridge responses, and matched measured acceleration time histories. The site-city interaction (SCI) framework overcomes challenges in modelling site-city models by accounting for site terrain and soil lithology from boreholes and buildings' arrangement and geometry. A pilot study of a city block in downtown Toronto revealed that buildings reduced the free-field surface ground motion by 15%. The study emphasized the importance of considering the actual geometry of buildings for accurate structural responses. An extensive parametric study further illustrated the SCI effect on the response of the site and city under various conditions. Accurately replicating the seismic response of critical components in large-scale numerical models requires component- and system-level decomposition techniques due to limitations in analyzing these models with a single tool. The integrated site-city interaction framework integrates a detailed target building model with a macro-scale site-city model using system-level decomposition. Dynamic analysis is conducted on a supercomputer for the large-scale site-city model, while the target building model is analyzed on a desktop computer. A pilot study investigating the effect of SCI on a residential city block showed minimal impact on the site and dynamic response of buildings when the target building was incorporated into the model. The soil-tunnel interaction framework employs component-level decomposition through multi-platform simulation to accurately capture the complex response of soil and tunnel systems. The framework successfully replicated the failure of the Daikai tunnel during the 1995 Kobe earthquake, highlighting the significance of capturing shear-related failure mechanisms of the center column on the tunnel failure.

Keywords: Civil Infrastructures
Finite Element Model
Seismic Simulation
Site-City Interaction
Soil-Structure Interaction
Supercomputer
Advisor: Kwon, Oh-Sung
A Starting Point

The overrepresentation of Indigenous and Black people in prison is a consequence of state policy. Gladue Reports and Impact of Race and Culture Assessments (IRCAs) are pre-sentencing reports designed to address the overrepresentation of Indigenous and Black convicted persons, respectively. Existing research has evaluated report-related outcomes, but has paid relatively little attention to how convicted persons experience these reports. What is known suggests that experiences are often negative. This research argues that the overrepresentation problem deserves much more attention from the convicted person’s perspective because Gladue Reports and IRCAs may harm convicted persons in specific ways which make them more likely to come back into contact with the criminal justice system. This possibility justifies research into whether, and if so, how, convicted persons experience such harms. That knowledge can inform policy recommendations designed to minimize harm and improve report experiences and outcomes.

Advisor: Shaffer, Martha
“If They Don’t Offer You a Seat at The Table Bring a Folding Chair”: Schooling To Produce Equitable Outcomes For Black Students in Ontario Schools

The persistence of inequitable schooling outcomes for Black students in Ontario is unacceptable. Literature codes this student achievement disparity as the achievement gap, a race binary comparison. This research uses inequitable schooling outcomes instead shifting the burden for schooling outcomes to the schooling production systems and structures. Black Feminist Thought (BFT) and Critical Race Theory in Education (CRT) inform the theoretical and conceptual frameworks. The Delphi Technique is the method of the research. Its panel is comprised of six Black youth aged 18-24 who attended K-12 schools in Ontario. The composition of this panel challenges the status quo regarding who carries expertise. This research also supports the notion that achievement based on meritocracy is a flawed concept as it excludes from the matrix of the production systems and structures of schooling outcomes major elements such as race, gender, wealth, and health. Recommendations from the Delphi panel concerning change include making the Ontario curriculum inclusive, replacing academic streaming with a non-linear K-12 process in which students progress through school based on interest and readiness, prioritizing student belonging, rethinking and replacing the current regimen of discipline and punishment practices with student centered conflict-resolution approach, and funding schools for full inclusion. The panel also re-imagines notions of discipline and punishment suggesting the engagement of a collaborative learning approach.

Keywords: Achievement
Black Students
Delphi Study
Policy implementation
Politics
Poverty
Advisor: Joshee, Reva
Breathe, Dance, Sing: Performing Arts Higher Education through a Transdisciplinary Counter-Critical Pedagogy

Higher education and professional practice in the performing arts co-exist in a mutually constitutive relationship. Just as complementary and supplementary dynamics are evident in the current status quo of pedagogy and practice, so too must their interdependence be embraced to rectify the persisting lack of support for transdisciplinarity in the performing arts. Situated within the field of artistic research, this thesis employs a wide array of empirical, phenomenological, and creative methods in order to demonstrate how to improve learning and performing conditions. Contemporary contexts in opera and music theatre increasingly require performers to exhibit a wide variety of technical and collaborative capacities; often, they are expected to do this while simultaneously exhibiting their unique talents as creative artists. However, even though one could say that the ideological core of opera and music theatre is built upon integrating the arts, current training programmes rarely prioritize disciplinary integration in their curricula. Such circumstances reveal wider problems in formal performing arts training that often leaves essential skills in openness, responsiveness, adaptability, collaboration, improvisation, decision making, and integration untapped and/or uncultivated. This thesis, therefore, proposes a drastic overhaul of performing arts training via a ‘counter-critical pedagogy’. This approach to learning prioritizes the acquisition and maintenance of agency and nurtures individuals’ well-being and artistry through a holistic and integrative approach. A transdisciplinary counter-critical pedagogy repositions key concepts in opera studies, critical theory, critical pedagogy, and performing arts training in more active and processual terms. It thereby promotes a dynamic approach to learning that is fully contextualized and situated, embraces greater complexity and intersectional approaches, and requires a holistic and ongoing process of reflection and critique.

Keywords: Artistic Research
Critical Pedagogy
Music Theatre
Opera
Performing Arts
Transdisciplinary
Advisor: Midgelow, Vida L.
Schotzko, T. Nikki Cesare
DNA Polymerase Gamma Subunit 1 Mediates the Selective Elimination of Mutant mtDNA from the Drosophila Female Germline

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) encodes essential components of the oxidative phosphorylation machinery which is the major source of cellular ATP. mtDNA is susceptible to accumulating mutations due to its uniparental inheritance and negligible recombination. If left unchecked, these mutations would be passed on over generations and become incapable of supporting the ATP requirement of cells, resulting in a severe decline in the fitness of the species. To counter this, the female germline has evolved a purifying selection mechanism to ensure that a healthy population of mtDNA is passed on to the next generation. Despite its importance, details underlying this process have only recently been coming to light and much remains to be uncovered. In Drosophila melanogaster, the prevailing model for selection posits that wildtype mtDNA replicates more frequently than mutant genomes in the early germline. Here, I present an alternative model in which the degradation of mtDNA drives a bulk of selection in the germline. I show that the bulk of selection takes place earlier in the germline than previously thought, at stages when mtDNA replication is limited. I demonstrate that the exonuclease activity of the mitochondrial DNA polymerase gamma 1 (PolG1) is essential for selection, in support of a degradative mode of selection. I also show that PolG1 preferentially interacts with mutantmtDNA during selection, suggesting its selectivity for mutant mtDNA. I further identify thatmitochondrial ATP levels regulate the exonuclease activity of PolG1, providing a mechanism through which PolG1 may selectively degrade mutant mtDNA. Promisingly, work from ourcollaborators suggests that this regulation of PolG1 exonuclease activity by ATP is conserved in humans, perhaps suggesting a conserved mechanism of selection. In summary, I posit a novel mechanism for selection in which PolG1 degrades mtDNA within mitochondria with low ATP levels to ensure that a healthy population of mtDNA is passed on to sustain the next generation.

Keywords: Drosophila
Germline
Mitochondrial DNA
PolG1
Advisor: Hurd, Thomas R
The Role of Race, Age, and Body Size in Perceptions of Femininity, Attractiveness, and Expressions of Benevolent Sexism

Foundational research on gender stereotypes and prejudice often lacks target diversity, contributing to a possibly narrow understanding of person perception. To address this gap, five within-participants studies (N = 757) examined how perceptions of femininity, attractiveness, and expressions of benevolent sexism shift at intersections of target women’s race (Asian/Black/White), age (young/old), and body size (thin/fat). Studies 1a and 1b investigated femininity and attractiveness perceptions using category labels for racial groups (e.g., Asian women), combinations of race and age groups (e.g., young Asian women), and combinations of race and body size groups (e.g., thin Asian women). Among thin and young targets, Asian women and White women were rated as more feminine and more attractive than Black women. In contrast, racial differences attenuated among old and fat targets, suggesting that older age and larger body size may be stronger cues than race for femininity and attractiveness judgments. Studies 2a (race), 2b (race x age), and 2c (race x body size) replicated and extended these findings using pilot-tested photos of real women (four studies; N = 160). In Study 2a, participants rated photos of three randomized targets (Asian/Black/White) on femininity, attractiveness, and benevolent sexism. Asian women and White women were perceived as more feminine and more attractive than Black women, but were only marginally greater targets of benevolent sexism than Black women. In Studies 2b and 2c, participants rated photos of six randomized targets varying in race and age and race and body size. Race interacted with age (2b) and body size (2c), such that Asian women and White women were perceived as more feminine and more attractive than Black women when targets were young or thin. Young and thin White women, along with young Asian women, were greater targets of benevolent sexism than young and thin Black women. Racial differences attenuated among old and fat targets for femininity, attractiveness, and benevolent sexism. Together, these data update our understanding of gender stereotypes and prejudice, and further demonstrate that person perception shifts substantially at different intersections of identity.

Advisor: Chasteen, Alison L
Re-reading the Jacob of the “Jacobites”: Heresiology and the Reception of Jacob of Serugh and Jacob Baradaeus

Who was the Jacob of the “Jacobites”? For centuries, scholarship on the history of Syriac Christianity has claimed that Jacob Baradaeus was the Jacob of the so-called “Jacobite” Christian tradition, known more commonly in recent scholarship as the West Syrian Miaphysite Christian tradition or as the Syriac Orthodox Church, the modern descendant of this tradition. Many scholars have made this claim because they have relied on discourses of heresiology over and, at times, against the evidence of other sources, especially the discourse of West Syrian Miaphysite Christians themselves. Relying on heresiology alone to make this claim has been problematic because heresiology is oppositional and denominal discourse. To understand who the Jacob of the “Jacobites” was, this study juxtaposes discourses of heresiology with the discourse of the “Jacobites” themselves whom heresiologists opposed and whom they named “Jacobites.” This juxtaposition provides a fuller perspective on the Jacob of the “Jacobites” and, in fact, reveals another Jacob entirely—the fifth- and sixth-century Syriac poet and theologian, Jacob of Serugh. This Jacob was also significant for West Syrian Miaphysite Christians, but his significance for these Christians has been neglected out of concerns for his alleged “orthodoxy.” By re-reading the Jacob of the “Jacobites” in the discourse of late antique and medieval heresiologies in juxtaposition with the discourse of the “Jacobites” themselves, this study provides a fuller perspective on both Jacob of Serugh and Jacob Baradaeus and, moreover, on the effects of heresiological discourse as to which Jacob was the Jacob of the “Jacobites.”

Keywords: heresiology
Jacob Baradaeus
Jacob of Serugh
Jacobites
Syriac Christianity
Advisor: Smith, Kyle