The effect of student self -described learning styles within two models of teaching in an introductory data mining course

This dissertation examines the roles of learning styles and teaching methodologies within a data mining educational program designed for non-Computer Science undergraduate college students. The experimental design is framed by a discussion of the history and development of data mining and education, as well as a vision for its future.;Data mining is a relatively new discipline which has grown out of the fields of database management and data warehousing, statistics, logic, and decision sciences. Over the course of its approximately 15 year history, data mining has emerged from its genesis within the academic and commercial research and development arenas to become a widely accepted and utilized method of exploratory data analysis for management, strategic planning and decision support. Over the first several years of its development, data mining remained the province of computer scientists and professional statisticians at large corporations and research universities around the world. Beginning in about 1989, these data mining pioneers developed many of data mining\u27s standards and methodologies on large datasets using mainframe computing systems. Throughout the 1990s, as both the hardware and software tools required for the realization of data mining have become increasingly accessible, powerful and affordable, the pool of potential data miners has expanded rapidly. Today, even individuals and small businesses can exploit the power of data mining using freely acquirable open source software packages capable of running on personal computers.;During the growth and development of data mining methodologies however, little research has been dedicated specifically to the pedagogical approaches used in teaching data mining. Educational programs that have evolved have largely remained within Computer Science departments and have often targeted graduate students as an audience. This dissertation seeks to examine the possibility of successful teaching data mining concepts and techniques to a non-Computer Science undergraduate audience. The study approached this research question by delivering a lesson on the data mining topic of Association Rules to 86 participants who are representative of the target audience. These participants were randomly assigned to receive the Association Rules lesson through either a Direct Instruction or a Concept Attainment teaching approach. The students completed Kolb\u27s Learning Styles Inventory, participated in the data mining lesson, and then completed a quiz on the concepts and techniques of Association Rules. A t-test was used to determine if significant differences existed between the scores generated under the two teaching models, and an ANOVA was conducted to identify significant differences between the four learning style groups from Kolb\u27s instrument. In addition to these two statistical tests, the data were also mined using Association Rules and Decision Tree methods.;In both statistical tests, we failed to reject the null hypothesis, finding no significant differences in quiz scores between the two teaching models or among the four learning style groups. Further investigation into the differences among learning styles within teaching models however did reveal that the Assimilator learning style students who received their instruction via Direct Instruction did score significantly higher on the quiz than did their learning style counterparts who received the lesson via Concept Attainment. This finding suggests that although we cannot rely solely on one instructional approach as consistently more effective than the other, there may be instances where the correct instructional choice will positively benefit some learners with certain learning styles. The results of the data mining activities also support this assertion. Association Rules mining yielded no strong relationships between teaching models, learning styles and quiz scores, but Decision Tree mining did reveal a similar pattern of higher scores earned by Assimilator learners within Direct Instruction.;The findings of this study show that effectively teaching data mining concepts to undergraduate non-Computer Science students will not be as simple as choosing one teaching methodology over another or targeting a specific learning style group. Rather, designing instructional activities using teaching methodologies which closely align with predominant learning styles in a classroom should prove more effective. Perhaps the most significant finding of the study is that elementary data mining concepts and techniques can be effectively taught to the target audience. Finally, we recommend that additional teaching methodologies and perhaps different learning style assessments could be tested in the same way as those selected for this study

The Scale and Extent of Political Economies of the Middle Bronze Age Jazīrah and the Bilād al-Šām (c. 1800-1600 BCE)

The present thesis investigates the material scale of six political economies distributed across the dry-farming plains and piedmonts of the Middle Bronze Age Jazīrah and the Bilād al-Šām. This is done using a comparative and interdisciplinary approach combining the large-scale analysis of administrative cuneiform texts with the compilation of relevant archaeological survey datasets. Drawing on theories and methods developed in landscape archaeology and historical sociology, the thesis builds a regional analysis of economic scale through a focus on three analytical units; the institutional household, the parent site, and the associated micro-region. Based on a dataset extracted from c. 1500 administrative cuneiform texts from the six study sites, the analytical chapters present a comprehensive discussion of the socio-economic and technological context of chief agricultural and animal resources and the material scale of their production, manipulation, circulation, and consumption. These investigations are undertaken focusing on three spheres of social action, namely the urban neighbourhood, agricultural regimes, and livestock management. The analysis concludes by drawing together quantitative data on various aspects of the institutional household economy to assess its material scale relative to the subsistence needs of its parent site and associated micro-region. The thesis demonstrates the limited material capabilities of a group of early political organisations relative to their social setting, both at the level of the parent settlement and, more forcefully, at the surrounding hinterland. It underscores the role of nascent political organisations as local and very resilient economic infrastructures across a politically volatile period of Bronze Age history. In line with recent and comparable investigations on Bronze Age economies, these findings offer critical revisions of traditional notions of the power of the early state. In methodological terms, the thesis formulates a novel means of combining large-scale analyses of text and material culture at a regional level, which can be applied in future studies

The historical archaeology of the Early Ottomans : a new perspective on arguments about the foundation of the Ottoman Empire

Ankara : The Department of History, İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University, 2015.Thesis (Ph. D.) -- Bilkent University, 2015.Includes bibliographical references leaves 217-252.This dissertation aims to evaluate the socio-economic structure of the Early Ottoman Period, and is based on an archaeological approach to reconstructing the early Ottoman state and its foundation. In this context, the settlement patterns of the region between Eskişehir and Bilecik and their reflection on settlement distribution and modification from the Late Byzantine to Early Ottoman Periods will be analyzed and interpreted using archaeological and historical data through the reconstruction of the Early Ottoman landscape in the region. The dissertation first examines archeological evidence relating to the Late Byzantine and Early Ottoman periods, including pottery and architecture. In the second part, it presents the extant evidence for and critical analyses of the relevant historical data dating a period from Mantzikert to Bapheus Battles. Through these evidences, the collected data from archaeological survey in the research area in Eskişehir and Bilecik provinces are analyzed. In this analysis, the data is discussed in the methodology of historical archaeology, especially documentary archaeology based on examining archaeological artifacts and historical texts together. Lastly, this study investigates the settlement patterns of Early Ottoman State in the research area and its reflection of social and cultural phenomenon characterized by the frontier (uç) cultural atmosphere. The research area was the conjunction and interaction area for two main cultural complexes, which were newcomers Turkmens and local Byzantines. The effect of these two cultural complexes to the settlement pattern was based on settlement strategies in the topography and the frontier social and cultural phenomenon in the both societies. In this context, the restricted and problematic topography and the pastoralist system determined the cultural, political and economic landscapes.Dikkaya, FahriPh.D