Growing up in the digital era, young children are exposed to numerous educational applications and programs, some with well-designed curricula and others focused more on entertainment or game-like qualities. With the increasing popularity of mobile language-learning applications among young children, this dissertation raises a crucial question: do…

Language can alter our mental conceptions of space, time, and categories. While there is compelling evidence that thought can be shaped by syntactic, morphological, and lexical features of a language, less is known about the impact of phonology on thought. This dissertation uses novel objects (alien cartoon figures) and pseudoword names in three…

While access to images in general has improved in the last 20 years, due to both advances in electronic storage and dissemination and to improvements in the intellectual provisions of them, access to editorial cartoons lags behind access to other types of images. While there have been piecemeal or ad hoc efforts to organize large cartoon…

There have been few empirical studies investigating the uses of graphic novels in education, fewer still in English Language Arts (ELA). As a result, there remain misconceptions about possible uses and potential benefits of graphic texts in ELA classrooms. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of graphic novels on the reading…

Children's media comprehension was compared for material presented on television, computer, or touchscreen tablet. One hundred and thirty-two children were equally distributed across 12 groups defined by age (4- or 6-years-olds), gender, and the three media platforms. Executive functioning as measured by attentional control, cognitive…

This dissertation is a phenomenological case study of two 12th grade English/language arts (ELA) classrooms where teachers used graphic novels with their advanced students. The primary purpose of this case study was to gain insight into the phenomenon of using graphic novels with these students--a research area that is currently limited.…

The identification and examination of cultural information strategies and censorship patterns used to propagate the controversial issue of the caricatures in two separate cultural contexts was the aim of this dissertation. It explored discourse used for the coverage of this topic by one newspaper in a restrictive information context and two…